1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a disc player suitable for recording/playing a floppy disc of for example 3.5 inches, and more particularly to an auto-eject device for a disc player, which effects auto-ejection using an auto-eject motor.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A prior art auto-eject device for recording/playing a 3.5 inch type of floppy disc includes: a loading member called a "cassette holder" for reciprocating a disc cassette, which contains a floppy disc, perpendicularly to a chassis between an elevated loading start position and a lowered loading end position; a loading drive member called the "slide plate", adapted to reciprocate in parallel with said chassis for driving said cassette holder reciprocally between the elevated position and the lowered position; and an auto-eject motor mounted on the chassis.
During the loading operation, after the disc cassette is inserted into the cassette holder in its elevated position, the slide plate which is in its returned position is released from its locked state by a trigger arm, and is slid to its forwarded position by a spring so that the cassette holder is driven from the elevated position to the lowered position by the slide plate to load the floppy disc in the disc cassette onto a disc table.
During ejection, on the other hand, when an eject switch is turned ON, an output cam is driven by the auto-eject motor so that the slide plate is slid from its forwarded position to its returned position against a slide plate spring until it is locked again in the returned position by the trigger arm.
The cassette holder is elevated from the lowered position to the elevated position by the slide plate so that the disc cassette is auto-ejected.
The auto-eject motor, which is made of a geared motor and used in the auto-eject device of a disc player according to the prior art, is exemplified in FIGS. 1 to 3.
This prior art auto-eject motor 1 is constructed by mounting a motor (e.g., DC motor) 3 horizontally on one end portion 2a of a housing 2 having a generally L-shape (as seen in plan) arranging a cam gear 5 or an output gear, which is formed with an output cam 4 on its lower face, at the leading end of the other end portion 2b, and mounting a gear train 6, which is composed of a plurality of reduction gears, in the other end portion 2b. On the motor shaft 3a of the motor 3, there is fixed a worm 7, which is in meshing engagement with a worm wheel 8 acting as an input gear of the gear train 6. The output cam 4 and the cam gear 5 protrude to the outside from apertures 9 and 10 which are formed in the bottom face and the side face of the housing 2.
Mounted directly above the cam gear 5 in the other end portion 2b of the housing 2 is a position detector 11 for detecting the position of the output cam 4. This position detector 11 is composed of a magnet adhered to the upper face of the cam gear 5, and a Hall element (although neither is shown) for detecting the position of the magnet.
A pair of input/output terminals 12 for the motor 3 protruded over the top face of the housing 2 and a pair of input/output terminals 13 for the position detector 11 are soldered to a flexible printed circuit board 14 having a generally F-shaped top plan shape. These input/output terminals 12 and 13 are connected by the flexible printed circuit board 14 with a non-illustrated board which is mounted in another position on a chassis 15.
The auto-eject motor 1 is mounted on the chassis 15 of the disc player horizontally with its output cam 4 directed downward, by means of a screw 16 and a positioning pin 17, and is constructed to drive a driven plate 18a of a slide plate 18, which is slidable in parallel over the chassis 15, in the direction of the arrow, using the output cam 4.
However, an auto-eject motor 1 according to this type of prior art is equipped with the generally L-shaped housing 2 and therefore has a profile which is so large that size reduction of the disc player is restricted. Further, since the driven plate 18a of the slide plate 18 is sandwiched between the housing 2 and the chassis 15 when the auto-eject motor 1 is screwed on the chassis 15, the slide plate 18 cannot be removed until the auto-eject motor 1 is removed. This induces the problem that it is troublesome to assemble/disassemble the disc player.